My client has been convicted for words that do not belong to herEmre Telci

Free speech advocates say the law is being used aggressively to silence and intimidate critics.

The trials have targeted journalists, academics and even schoolchildren. Coupled with a crackdown on opposition media and journalists, the trials have sounded alarms over the erosion of rights and freedoms in a country that was once seen as a model of Muslim democracy.

"These insult trials are being initiated in series, they are being filed automatically," Mr Telci told The Associated Press by telephone after the verdict. "Merve was prosecuted for sharing a posting that did not belong to her. My client has been convicted for words that do not belong to her."

Watch | Police raid offices of popular critical newspaper in Turkey after government seizure

She later deleted the post, apparently on advice from a friend who had warned she may have committed a crime.

Ms Buyuksarac was one of thousands of people to share the poem, which did not mention Mr Erdogan - who was then prime minister - by name, but alluded to a corruption scandal that allegedly involved his family.

The president’s lawyer told the Istanbul court that Ms Buyuksarac’s actions had gone beyond “the limits of criticism” and amounted to "an attack" on the Turkish leader's personal rights.

In public comments last year, the model pointed out that she had not been responsible for the adaptation. “I shared it because it was funny to me. I did not intend to insult Recep Tayyip Erdoğan,” she said.

Ms Buyuksarac’s sentencing comes almost two decades after Mr Erdogan himself was jailed over a poem he read at an Islamist rally.

The Turkish leader served four months in prison in 1998, after prosecutors said it challenged the nation’s secular order. Mr Erdogan has insisted the poem was “was an attention-getter”.